Fearless Friday / Where is Real Life?
I am against the increased mediation of life—the flattening of the self into images, into profiles, blogs, and tweets.
Life has become a series of self-contained photo-stories, tiny statuses. A poring over of your own facebook profile and photos and blog will reassure you that you look cool or smart or interesting. Who isn’t tempted to confirm and reaffirm their own existence in this way?
Nature, spirit, real life are more gentle. Perhaps less exciting to the untrained, undiscerning eye—to someone who is used to eye candy.
The self-contained world found in photos of yourself, your friends, celebrities, in your favourite blogs, the text in your profile, in your tweets, is sugar, empty calories. They are not real life, nor are they nourishing and supportive of intellectual or personal growth or connection with other humans.
It’s a sugar rush, a sugar high, and the crash comes when you realize you don’t feel as pretty as the photo of you, or as that photo of someone you don’t even know, or when your life doesn’t seem as cool as that blogger’s, or you don’t program such awesome things as that pixelhacker. Or when you realize that inspiring illustration or article isn’t going to save your life or keep you happy and excited about yourself and the world. Or that the party’s over.
Empty calories. Nothing for your soul to really munch on.
Much of our society is addicted to sugar. That quick satisfaction and comfort, brought to you by overprocessed food, is also present when we seek out new media to entertain us and new imagery to wake us up—or at least distract us from our ever-present boredom and dissatisfaction. We always need more hyped up, processed images and unrealistic ideas, ideals.
And I am afraid we are going to get stuck there. I am so afraid we are going to forget where life really comes from, where spirit lies—that there is spirit at all.
And we’ll be too busy at our computers (handheld or not) to notice the trees disappearing, the common finch’s beautiful pattern, your friend’s heart beating contentedly, people getting pushed out of their traditional lands, the mountains being cut to pieces, our own hearts trying to hold onto something real.
It’s easier to control people who willingly give their lives over to image, to limited experience, to experience dictated or presented by another.
People who stay open—to nature, to each other, and to themselves and all their inner beauty and complexity—can connect with each other more deeply and stay wild.
I’m not saying the internet and instant communication are of no benefit to our social lives and our ability to get in touch with one another. I’m saying that we need to be careful and mindful of what we consume. We have to watch our patterns of interaction with the internet and our newfangled tools. How often do you get distracted when looking for one specific piece of information? How easily do you get sucked into a photo album of yourself or your friends? How do you know when to stop looking at fancy images and start producing your own work? How do you reach out when you need someone by your side?
Be mindful. Be in tune with yourself. Turn off the radio and listen to your heart for once. Don’t be afraid of others, or of looking vulnerable or silly. Take care of yourself and your surroundings. Take care of the people around you, and of people you’ve never met.
For this is how the world will change for the better.